Operation: Power Boost

Stop. Don't buy that new Mac quite yet. With our easy, affordable hardware and software tweaks your aging machine can run as fast* as it did the day you bought it.

*(Or even faster.)

The faster your Mac runs, the faster you can work. The faster you can work, the more you get done. The more you get done, the better you look to colleagues, clients, and, of course, your boss. Even if your Mac is strictly a home machine, used for fun stuff like Web browsing, email, and creative projects, the faster it runs, the happier you’re likely to be with your Mac-using experience.

Catch our drift?

Of course, most late-model Macs need very little help to run quite speedily. We chose to focus on Intel-based Macs for this article because Apple released the first Intel machines in January 2006--only 3 years, 9 months ago. Though we know many people still happily rock PowerPC Macs--more power to you!--you have to admit that once a Mac, or any computer, is coming up on its 4th birthday, it’s probably going to start to show in sluggish performance, a chock-full hard drive, and other key areas.

And so we present a story in two parts, aimed squarely at helping you speed up your Intel Mac with a minimum of effort--and cash outlay. First, we give you 25 ways to speed up your Mac with OS and other software tweaks. Then we show you how you can upgrade certain hardware components on your Intel Mac--no clean suit or computer science degree required.

25 Simple Software Tweaks

How to get your Mac tuned and toned in time for Snow Leopard's imminent release.

As much as we’d all like brand-new Macs, we’re the last people to insist that you buy a new machine just to achieve a performance boost. And, in fact, you don’t have to buy a new machine to realize performance gains; the tips in this section can help you realize speed increases with no hardware upgrades necessary. Now, true enough, if you intend to upgrade to Snow Leopard, you’ll need to upgrade to an Intel Mac if your current machine is running a PowerPC processor because Intel CPUs are a Snow Leopard requirement. But whether you’re running Leopard or Snow Leopard, Intel or PowerPC, our software tweaks pay dividends to all.

1. Open Up and say, "Ahhhhh"

Tucked away in the Utilities folder is Activity Monitor, a useful app that’ll provide you with a comprehensive overview of CPU usage, system memory, disk activity, and network performance to help you pinpoint any issues with your hardware. Before troubleshooting with any of the tips in this article, a perusal of your Mac’s vitals will make it easier to diagnose, prescribe, and dispense the proper medication.

Activity Monitor looks a tad scary to the uninitiated, but having it running lets you track how much of your Mac's resources are being gobbled up at any given moment.

2. Can't Quit You, Baby

Let’s start off easy. Mac newbies and recent switchers might not realize it, but OS X doesn’t automatically assume you’re done using an app just because you close a window. While that’s good for productivity, lots of open, idle apps--especially resource-hungry ones like Photoshop--can slow down your system. So when you’re finished with an app, make sure to quit.

It may seem obvious, but quitting certain apps as soon as you're done with them will improve your Mac's performance.

3. Flip the Switch

If you have multiple user accounts on your Mac running Leopard, your particular account might take a performance hit from apps still running on one of the other users’ screens. By logging out of all other accounts before starting a lengthy work session, things will feel a little snappier for you. Activate each user in turn and select Apple menu > Logout Username, or press Shift-Command-Q.

Yes, you're sure you want to log out this--and all other--users, except yourself.

4. Fidget with Your Widgets

Even the most information-obsessed users don’t need every widget running in their Dashboard, and shutting down at least a few of them (especially if you’re not running Leopard) will save precious FLOPs--that is, floating point operations, which are processor-intensive math caluculations. Leaving too many apps running at the same time and having a host of widgets silently spinning in the background can eat into your processing power and drag down your Mac.

Those Dashboard widgets keep you informed, but they also suck up precious system resources. Quit all widgets you don't absolutely need.

5. Update, Update, and Away!

While automatically scheduled to run weekly scans for new updates, it can’t hurt to occasionally check your Software Update preference pane (in System Preferences or your menubar’s Apple menu) to make sure an OS update hasn’t slipped in under the radar--a “point” update (like the jump from 10.5.7 to 10.5.8) can be like a blood transfusion for your Mac.

All's well in Update Land.

6. Remember Your Permission Slip

It might not be the panacea some Mac geeks would have you believe it is, but running certain Disk Utility (Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility) operations--namely Repair Disk Permissions--is a good first step toward getting your Mac in tip-top shape. In Disk Utility, click on the First Aid tab and then Repair Disk Permissions.

Think of Repair Disk Permissions as a 3,000-mile oil change for your Mac.

7. Stick to the Scripts

Like any Unix-based system, OS X runs a series of maintenance scripts daily, weekly, and monthly to keep everything clean and uncluttered. However, unless your Mac is an insomniac, it’ll miss its nightly 3:15 a.m. scheduled maintenance if you shut it down while you sleep. You can run these scripts yourself, either by tinkering in Terminal or enlisting any number of handy system utilities, such as OnyX (donations accepted, www.titanium.free.fr/pgs2/english/onyx_leopard.html) or Cocktail ($14.95, www.maintain.se/cocktail).

In Cocktail, to run scripts manually, click System > Scripts, choose which scripts you want to run from the drop-down, then click Run.

If your machine will be off for longer than 24 hours, get help from Cocktail to manually run daily, weekly, or monthly maintenance scripts.

8. Chime in Any Time

After every script, cache dump, permission repair, or software update, a good old-fashioned restart will help keep your Mac so fresh and so clean. And since Macs don’t usually need to be restarted, try to remember to do it once a week.

9. Clear-Cut Through the Jungle

Like the font cache, Safari keeps its own stockpile of temporary files that need to be purged every so often to reach optimal speed. Press Option-Command-E in any open Safari window. For best results, relaunch the browser too.

10. Cache Cows

One of the most common causes of OS X slowdown is the result of an abundance of stored temporary files, namely overflowing system, user, and font caches. A relatively simply Terminal command can clear them out: atsutil databases –remove.

This command flushes that pesky font buildup, but there is an array of third-party apps (including OnyX and Cocktail, see step 7) to help you here too. We like Cocktail’s sleek, OS X–like interface. To clear the font cache, specifically, in Cocktail, click Pilot > Tasks. Under Clear Selected Caches, click Options, then User, then check the box next to Font Caches. For good measure, we also include fonts from Adobe and Microsoft apps.

Nothing against Terminal and the command line, but we find it easier to use Cocktail to clear our Mac's caches.